In 1993, Azerbaijani OMON squads committed terrorist acts in Georgia and South Ossetia in order to blockade communication of Armenia with the external world, said veteran of special purpose police unit (OMON) of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan Rogdai Karaev.
Karaev was enrolled in OMON after giving his service at the troops attached to the Interior Ministry of the USSR in 1990. He was transferred to the intelligence service group as soon as the NKR Self-Defense Forces liberated Shushi on May 1992.
Speaking about the events of 1993, he mentioned, “Taking into consideration my experience, they could not fire me, but gave me instructions firing me from OMON. I was assigned to the central office of the Interior Ministry within two months. During that period we succeeded an operation which I would like to mention. We left for Taganrog with a large sum of money. Here, we illegally acquired helicopters and smuggled them in to Azerbaijan. There were two more operations in Georgia, in Ossetia, where we took up steps for cutting off access of trains with fuel to Armenia,” he said.
R. Karaev stated that Azerbaijani OMON committed even more covert actions, however, he did not talk about them. “After the fall of Shushi, I was transferred to the intelligence service group. But there have been operations about which that I cannot speak even now, after 20 years. I am not authorized to talk about those operations. Maybe in some 50-60 years it will be okay talking about them,” noticed veteran of Azerbaijani OMON Rogdai Karaev.
Karaev also noted that Azerbaijani OMON suffered heavy losses in Karabakh, losing about 50% of its personnel. Besides that, he did not deny casualties among civilians with Armenian nationality during “Operation Koltso (Operation Ring)” which was conducted by the Soviet troops and the Azerbaijani OMON in 1991. He also mentioned that after the Horadiz operation in 1994 Azerbaijani army became exhausted and could not advance. Karaev also noted that situation for Azerbaijan in direction of Gianja was tough in that period.